


Paradox Space is a Slut

by iwantcandy2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Drabble, Gen, Paradox Space, navel gazing, the universe is out to screw you over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 11:49:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantcandy2/pseuds/iwantcandy2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eridan conclusively proves that the universe is out to get him. Using SCIENCE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradox Space is a Slut

Paradox space is a bitch. And Eridan Ampora is its asshole of choice to screw over.

Most people prefer to blame negative outcomes on “destiny.” However, Eridan was a man of science. He did not believe in things like luck or fate. No, he believed in the sweet smell of textbooks and the cold of a test tube cradled in his hand and the sonorous murmur of a chemical reaction. He wasn’t like those superstitious lowbloods, incapable of understanding the complex weave of the universe. Oh no, he understood the way the universe worked all right. That’s how he knew it was, in no uncertain terms, out to fuck up his life in every conceivable way. 

See, he had been studying the laws of paradox space. There wasn’t a lot else to do in the afterlife, or as it is scientifically called, the post-mortem somnium bulla. 

Some naïve fools assume that because there are infinite realities, that means there are infinite possibilities. That is the conclusion of a cognitively-challenged wiggler. Due to the laws of entropy, the universe does not have enough energy to sustain all possible courses of action. When he was still learning about the myriad intricacies of space-time casualty, Eridan had found it useful to liken reality to a tree. If left unpruned, a tree would spend more time growing out then growing up, and it would waste its resources on producing new leaves, never bearing fruit. So in interest of self-perpetuating its existence, the universe would “prune” those branches of space that would not lead to the creation of a new universe. 

Eridan understood the necessity of stomping on the dreams of a few bottom feeders for the greater good. What he took offense at was the universe’s taste in which realities it would bring to fruition. He had been talking to himself, or rather, to doomed timeline versions of himself, and he had noticed a few disturbing patterns.

Pattern 1: The happier he was, the quicker he died. He had been keeping track of which versions of himself died when. What he had noticed was that he was never in a matespritship for more than a couple of weeks before something unfortunate happened. Like the version of himself who achieved god tier, then died an hour later protecting Fef, who held him in her arms while he passed and made a teary proclamation of undying love. Bull shit. Or the version of himself that managed to win over Nepeta, only to die from an allergic reaction to cameowmile tea while visiting her world. Are you fucking kidding? 

Back to the tree analogy. While all outshooting branches had to be cut eventually, some were clipped much sooner than others. And it just so happened that the branches containing a happy Eridan were nubbier than the horns of a certain crimson mutant. On the other hand, timelines with a miserable Eridan often continued far past the point of productivity. He could be a veritable pariah for months; the universe didn’t care. But have him happy for a minute? Nooooo. 

Pattern 2: Eridan was useless. As painful as it was to admit, Eridan had never been an integral part of any timeline. He was never the leader, never the crux of their survival. No one wanted him around, no one relied on him. He was at best dead weight, and at worst the force that tore his team apart. Like the timelines where he got the entire red team wiped out due to enraging a band of angry level 50 ogres early in the game. Or another timeline, where he got rejected by Kar and killed him in an angry rampage, dooming them to a leaderless mess until they were picked off one by one.

Pattern 3: No one forgave him. Okay, so he killed a couple of people. There was a timeline where Gamzee murdered everyone and then used their entrails to paint a portrait of the Grumpy Meowbeast and post it to the internet. Didn’t stop everyone from wanting to get down with the clown in the afterlife. But it didn’t matter which version of who he encountered, his friends were never glad to see him. Hell, he had even encountered a version of Feferi who had been his matesprit, and she claimed that she needed space. Fucking space. In the Furthest Ring.

Everyone else had happy timelines. It was like the universe tried to make up for all the shit it dragged them through by granting their alternate selves luck. There was that word again. Luck. It didn’t exist. Luck was paradox space’s way of throwing a bone to some and giving the finger to others. It defied all laws of probability and causality for every single iteration of himself to be persecuted and excluded. Eridan had been singled out by reality itself to suffer.

He was supposed to be the prince of hope. But how could he hold onto the hope for a brighter tomorrow when he had scientifically proven that the universe would never give him one? Hope relied on not knowing the future, but on thinking that the best of all outcomes was around the corner. Eridan had done the math. He had calculated that approximately 89% of his selves died violently, 97% died alone, 34% reported regretting even being hatched, and a whopping 99.34% agreed that life was hard and no one understood.

The universe was out to get him. As if the fact that his death was necessary for the alpha timeline wasn’t evidence enough, he wasn’t even allowed the solace of knowing that somewhere out there, there was an Eridan who was allowed to be happy. There was not. So what was the point of trying? Why search for friends to reach out to, why try to be a better person, why try making sense of existence in the first place? Reality would just warp itself to make sure that things always turned out for the worst.

Eridan does not believe in magic. But he has conclusively proven that he is cursed by paradox space. And that hope was something that never existed at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't like this one as much as the other works I've posted (they are so much better, you should check them out). However, I was fascinated with the way paradox space works. Especially what Karkat said about how the universe had condemned certain people to death and such. I mean, really, reality, why do certain people have to die in the alpha timeline? Why you gotta be such a cold bitch?


End file.
